On the way home from the grocery store, my daughter pointed at a woman in a long skirt and headscarf and asked, loudly, “Why does she dress like that?” I fumbled through a quiet answer about different cultures and clothes, all while hoping the woman didn’t hear. My daughter nodded, but I could see she wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t either.
That evening, I did what many parents do: I opened my laptop and searched for “anti-racism books for 5 year olds.” I was hit with long reading lists, complex essays, and a few picture books that seemed promising but also felt somehow heavy. I wanted something that would give my daughter language, not confusion. I wanted to raise her to notice and respect difference without making her feel guilty or scared. At five, she’s just beginning to understand the world beyond our street, and I didn’t want to mess that up.
I found a lot of material, but not much that told me what to actually say during dinner or on the walk to school. So I started paying closer attention to the moments when race and identity came up naturally. And I learned that for a five-year-old, anti-racism is less about teaching historical injustice and more about naming what they see, answering their questions plainly, and modeling a sense of fairness. That’s not a small thing. It’s just more ordinary than the parenting articles make it sound.
The first real resource that worked was a picture book. The Colors of Us by Karen Katz is about a little girl trying to draw a self-portrait. She walks through her neighborhood and notices that her friends, her aunt, and her neighbors all have different shades of brown skin. The book calls them “cinnamon,” “chocolate,” and “peanut butter.” My daughter loved it. After we read it, she took my arm and put hers next to it. “You’re like a latte,” she said. “I’m more like toast.” That was it. She was naming skin colors the same way she named hair colors or shoe sizes. Not good or bad, just different.
I started doing the same thing in conversation. Instead of acting like skin color was something to whisper about, I used the language from the book in everyday situations. “That little boy has beautiful dark brown skin,” I’d say while we waited for the bus. It felt awkward at first, but it got easier. The point wasn’t to make skin color a big deal; it was to stop pretending it didn’t exist. Color-blindness is a kind of silence, and kids notice silence.
Then came the trickier part. My daughter came home from preschool one day and announced, “Sam says brown people are bad.” My stomach dropped. I wanted to immediately correct it, to explain everything about systemic racism and history. But I took a breath and asked, “What do you think?” She shrugged. “I think Sam is silly. My friend Maya has brown skin and she’s nice.”
That moment taught me something. At five, kids are not ready for a lecture on implicit bias, but they are ready for a conversation about fairness. Instead of diving into the history of discrimination, we talked about how it feels when someone is left out or treated unfairly. We practiced saying, “That’s not fair” out loud. That phrase became our starting point.
When we encounter stories on TV or in books where a character is treated badly because they look different, I now have a way to frame it. “How would you feel if someone said you couldn’t play because of your skin color?” She’ll think about it. She’ll say, “Not nice.” I’ll nod. “That’s why we don’t judge people by their skin.” It’s simple, but it’s honest.
Another resource that surprised me was Sesame Street. They have a series of videos and articles about race and identity, designed for young children. One video shows kids talking about their skin tones and drawing self-portraits. Another explains that while everyone’s skin is the same on the inside, the outside is just another way we are all unique. That kind of straightforward, positive framing works well. We watched it together, and my daughter started pointing out that the characters in every story deserve a turn. It wasn’t a huge revelation, but it was a step.
I’ve also learned to answer specific questions without overcomplicating. When she asked why a classmate’s hair is so curly, I didn’t say, “We don’t say that.” Instead, I said, “That’s how her hair grows. People come in lots of different kinds of hair.” And then I described my own straight hair and her dad’s wavy hair. The more natural and matter-of-fact I am, the more matter-of-fact she is. Curiosity isn’t a problem; treating someone badly because of what you notice is.
A playdate last week brought this home. Another child was over, and the two of them were drawing. The other kid pointed to a brown crayon and said, “That’s the ugly color.” My daughter looked at me. I looked at her. Before I could figure out what to say, she picked up the crayon and said, “No, it’s not. It’s the color of my friend. You just have to use the right colors.”
I was so impressed, and also a little wary. She wasn’t completely right—there isn’t a “right” color for skin. But she had the instinct to correct an unfair statement. We talked later about how the other child probably didn’t mean it, but that words matter. We practiced saying, “We don’t call colors ugly because people have those colors too.” It wasn’t perfect, but it was real.
The thing is, this isn’t a problem you solve by reading one great book or having one perfect talk. It’s an ongoing, awkward, sometimes messy process. There are days when I say the wrong thing or avoid the topic because I’m tired. There are moments when I second-guess whether explaining racial difference to a five-year-old is even necessary. But then I remember that she already sees skin color, hair texture, and other differences. She’s always been paying attention. The question is whether I give her the words to make sense of those differences kindly or leave her to guess on her own.
We still have a stack of library books on the coffee table. All Are Welcome is one, and Something Happened in Our Town is another, though we read that one with a lot of pauses and simple explanations about protest and fairness. Some days she asks questions that feel too big. Other days she’s more interested in pretending to be a cat. I’ve learned to follow her lead. If she’s not interested, I won’t force it. But I’ll keep the books out and the conversations open.
Last week, she told me that her favorite color is now brown, because “it’s the color of a lot of people, and people are nice.” It wasn’t a profound statement, but it made me feel like maybe we were getting somewhere. I don’t know exactly what she understands yet, and I don’t think I need to. For now, it’s enough that she’s noticing, asking questions, and learning, the same way she learns everything else: slowly, unevenly, and mostly by watching me.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » On the way home from the grocery store, my daughter pointed at a woman in a long skirt and headscarf and asked, loudly, “Why does she dress like that